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I enjoyed the first half of this book more than the second. It began life as a short story, which led to a serial of further short stories, which eventually led to the book. The beginning is clearly a science fiction author in awe of the sheer scale of the world he has imagined, and it is breathtaking. As the story progresses, it feels like Aldiss is trying more and more to write a Proper Book with Characters and Plot, and the wonder of the mad flora world is the worse for it.

This was a difficult book to finish. I wanted to finish it, for about a week, but the last 50 or so pages are emotionally harrowing. Hard work.

Stylistically beautiful. Terse and without any extraneous detail, it reads a bit like a ascetic philosophical exploration of decisions in society.

A lot of other reviews (and the blurb above) focus on the book's setting in Korea -- traditionally meat-heavy diet, traditionally rigid patriachal family structure etc. I didn't find this -- apart from the names of people (which are few) and the descriptions of food, there is very little to locate this book in space or time beyond being somewhat modern.

A lot of people recommend the Varieties of Reference to keen undergraduates as a follow on from Naming and Necessity. I will be recommending this instead. Insightful, broad-scope book covering a lot of ground and presenting a solid new theoretical direction, in a clear and fluid style. Thoroughly recommend to anyone who wants to get deep into the theory of reference.